ABSTRACT
There are a number of reasons why Almodovar’s work can help with defining gay sensibility. If the people are accustomed to seeing everything in terms of their culture’s assumption of near-universal sexual dimorphism, a “hermaphroditic” stance toward the world can be disturbing. The anonymous author of the Rosarium made a similar move when he adapted the dual-sexed figure as an image of a recurring, intermediary stage in the movement of the alchemical process. All that remains, then, is to observe the parallels between the hermaphroditic image and the consciousness attributable to “gay sensibility” which is so evident in Almodovar’s work. Almodovar gives the reader an extraordinarily sustained elaboration of the nature of the hermaphroditic archetype, and as the complexities of sex and gender become ever more urgent issues for reconsideration in a society the people could do worse than inform themselves by studying his aeuvre.
